BioMarin Pharmaceutical Reviews

Pros

BioMarin is a great place to work and learn. As a company growing quickly and with aggressive goals, it's a lot of work to keep up. On the other hand, you're given plenty of learning opportunities if you can rise up to the challenge.

Cons

There's a lot of work to do, and usually not enough people to do it. That means long hours and fairly high turnover.

Pros

Fast growing company with good future prospects, the stock options are apealing. Free bagels on ednesdays and free lunch on fridays are a good perk.

Cons

Some areas of the company arent adapting well to becoming a larger organization. Many employees are being overworked due to poor resrouce planning.

Pros

Laid-back Marin vibe
Casual dress-code
Nice commute
Friendly co-workers

Cons

De-motivating atmosphere
Inadequate support from under-resourced functions
Very little career-development opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in your employees
Hire the right people
Do things to make it a great place to work

Pros

Is a great place for an introduction to the Biotechnology industry. Much of Senior Management moved over from Genentech and have many years of experience

Cons

Communication between departments is not always smooth as distance between offices can be an issue.

Advice to Senior Management

Management is extremely friendly and helpful when addressing employees. At times could perhaps be even more critical in order to learn about areas for personal growth.

Pros

Experience. Paying mortgage. Bringing business ideas forward.

Cons

"Old boys' club" trumps fair play . Ethical misbehaviors by higher management overlooked. Lack of qualifications evident in senior personnel in some departments. Adverse work environment if you are ethical & fair.

Advice to Senior Management

Solicit feedback from employees who complain about unfair treatment. The truth will empower you to make changes and improve the environment; otherwise history will repeat itself. The annual review is sometimes used as a form of psychological abuse. How do you know how fair or unfair your directors/VPs are?

Pros

Good people, good products. You're doing mostly orphan drug work for small, underserved patient populations, which can give you a pretty good feeling when compared with cranking out yet another drug for blood pressure or cancer. Decent atmosphere, but very business-like. There's not a lot of joking around or playing around - people come to work and go home.

Cons

Management often sets unreasonable timelines, creating unnecessary anxiety within study teams. I don't feel that senior management does a great job of communicating what they want at the start of a project, and I haven't seen any evidence of an overall company plan that we're all working toward. Molecules exist in their own little worlds, and teams seem to be in a constant battle for resources and attention. Also, it's a little quiet - they're breaking out of their shell as a small company into something bigger, but it still has the attitude of a small company (ie, poor work-life balance, very serious, expecting employees to basically give up their lives to get the work done).

Advice to Senior Management

I understand we want to drive drugs to market, but setting unrealistic timelines can cause real problems when programs feel pressured to move forward without a fuller understanding of the molecule. You can't go into phase III when phase I is still up in the air, and telling a team to just "do it" won't magically make it happen. Someone at the top needs to take a real look at everything this company does and come up with a reasonable, realistic business plan, and then communicate this plan downward so that people know where their priorities should lie. A little bit of upper management input would go a long way toward smoothing out the rough patches.

Pros

Work-life balance (but not for everyone)
Good Benefits
Great fellow workers
We have a direct connection to the patients we serve (Orphan Drug Co.)

Cons

Has grown too fast and leadership seems clueless
Turnover is becoming a problem
Development and growth are NOT encouraged, rather the opposite
Morale is very low

Advice to Senior Management

Wake up, free lunch and bagels do not build morale. Real leadership does

Pros

Good pay and nice people not in management

Cons

Lack of management and direction.

Advice to Senior Management

Work with your employees

Pros

- Highly competitive salary
- Good work / life balance
- Good culture (friendly, smart people who are fun to work with)
- Company is very patient-focused. You can really see the results of your work.
- Great perks (catered lunches, travel, ESPP, medical, dental, etc.)
- Company's pipeline of drug candidates has a lot of potential.

Cons

- Cost of living in the Bay Area and Marin County especially is very high. Many people have long commutes (45min+) to live in more affordable areas.
- Huge growing pains. Almost 50% growth in headcount in last few years.
- Faces organizational issues of a company twice its size, such as lack of communication between departments, many "managers" with no one reporting to them, and unclear advancement for entry or mid-level positions. Trying to get things done can be very challenging.

Advice to Senior Management

A lot of work needs to be done to the organizational structure while the company is still small enough to do it.

Pros

Good salary and benefits. Work with some very good people. Biomarin fills an unmet need in orphan drugs which is important. And is overall a good company.

Cons

Some senior management not enough experience in some areas. Some managers severely lack people skills. Fortunately there are some good managers as well... If you work here, make sure you like your manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management can be more specific in asking for what they need from certain departments. Also some managers don't have the personality for management and should be used elsewhere.